We got my dog about 9 years ago. He is a wonderful dog, and the whole experience of getting him was excellent. I found a breeder of mixed breed dogs, because I have allergies and couldn’t risk getting a shelter pup of questionable lineage. Her dogs were actually cross-breeds, so both parents were purebred. I spoke several times on the phone with the breeder about our needs, the kind of dog that would fit in best with my family. She had several litters of mixed breed pups brewing, and most types were only available 2 or 3 times a year at most. It was a small, family-run breeding business and the puppies spent a lot of time with her family, making them well-socialized.
I sent photos of Phantom to her and a few became part of the website. I would peek back on periodically, and a few years ago noticed she had a LOT more puppies available, in a LOT of new mixes. Like, a LOT. This bothered me, as I knew when we got my dog the litters were housed in an area attached to her home where she also did grooming. I should have given it more thought than I did, but I didn’t.
Yesterday I tried to pull up the site to look for a photo of a specific mix, and the site was unavailable. This morning I did some digging. There were complaints that she was running a puppy mill, dating back to 2011 or so. The large numbers of available puppies apparently were a concern. There wasn’t any record of an “aha!” Investigation into her business, it appears people where making claims and asking her to provide photos of the building where the puppies were housed, and a claim that the family no longer lived on the property.
There were no new mentions of her, the website, her business or anthing after 2012. It appears she sold the whole thing to someone who went out of business last year. It probably didn’t help that even if the new owner was on the up and up, the old domain was listed on the web as a puppy mill.
I feel things went off the rails when they started to make money, and just kept adding more and more dogs, built a separate building for them, etc. I’m not convinced they run it like one of those horrid mills with wire cages, etc., (because nothing I’ve read says that was the case) but the only photos I ever saw were the old days. When the dogs were happy and playing with the family. I hope.
